tampered | Log ongoing; closed

Log ongoing; closed

When; Oct 8
Rating; PG-13 at the most
Characters; Rose Tyler, The Doctor
Summary; Rose ends up with 'Last Man Standing' curse while the Doctor ends up with Nightmares the next day. It's all a wreck.
Log;

When Rose woke up that morning, the City was a deserted ruin. When faced with an apocalypse, or if you're Rose Tyler, the first order of business is always to find the Doctor. She checks City Solutions, the ship where they get chips then Donna's flat followed by Amy and Rory's as well as the TARDIS'. When all of those come up empty, Rose begins to get worried. By afternoon she's panicked, having searched the City over. Come evening, she's a wreck and that's when her device decides to start broadcasting. She's in tears, tracks of mascara on her cheeks. It's like losing him at Canary Wharf all over again but somehow this is worse. She's losing everything she could have had with him that she never even imagined she'd get before.

“I need you back. Please. Doctor please, find me.”

She sits on a bench for a moment, giving into the absolute wreck of a girl she is inside then wipes at her cheeks with the heels of her hands, takes a deep breath and stands up. Rose Tyler doesn't wait for the Doctor to find her. She finds him.

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That sounds perfect. He probably has something happening in... most of the rooms. But there's at least something in the kitchen because a lot of cooking is kind of waiting on stuff to happen. I wonder if he's actually cooked much or if she knows he can do it.

'I'm thinking it might. Definitely lower the instinct for knowing which way to do it in.'

It was nice of her to mention it - he feels a little less silly about them in general. He will soon though. He does actually want to in some part but it'll probably be somewhat unprompted.

I suspect maybe he hasn't and she doesn't because of the constant going out for chips and milkshakes and burgers.

"Best to avoid it at all. Fairly certain we eat enough chips, biscuits and the like though."

Really they tend to eat a great deal. Or at least it seems to be a great deal. Unprompted talking is good, encouraged even and at least that part of her goal was accomplished.

Good point.

'We do eat quite a lot, don't we? Did we eat this much before? It feels like it's happening a lot.' Not that it makes any difference. If he gained any weight he would absolutely quietly flip out.

In all likelihood it will be within this conversation, particularly if they wind up staying awake and not sleeping for the rest of the night.

His question has her twisting her face up a bit, pondering the answer.

"I think so. It was just sorta spread out over different planets." At least that's her theory. There's no possible way he could gain weight. He's far too spastic and constantly in motion. On the other hand, she very well might and could. She'll flip out equally as quietly, hoping it'll escape his notice and decide that she needs to take up running as exercise. Of course if she sells it right, he might go running with her.

She's going to try and keep them both awake in hopes it is a curse and when midnight rolls around, he'll be able to sleep without nightmares.

Well now that the topic in general has been brought to his attention it's somewhat more likely he will but just as unlikely he will really care. And yeah, she might have to sell the 'running for pure running's sake' thing since that seems a bit... boring. She does have the spend-time-with-Rose bit on her side from the get-go though.

'I suppose if this sort of thing keeps happening then pure adrenaline use and the extra energy required to remain conscious will counteract all the eating.'

Sleeping without nightmares is always fun. He prefers it when that happens. You get so much more bang for your sleep that way.

As long as they don't cease eating entirely or cut out chips completely, she's not likely to notice or care. She'll have devise some sort of other reason for running. She's not crazy about the idea of running for running's sake either but she's less crazy about gaining weight. At least not in noticeable amounts.

"Good point. Think I'd prefer ten pounds." Over the fear of losing him again and watching him go through this sort of pain, yeah she'll take weight gain.

Funny how that works. She's going to attempt to work something out with him where they sleep in the hammock a couple of times a week. At least then she'll be there when and if he does have nightmares.

Nahhh, neither of those will ever cease. I don't think they can stop running or eating chips and maintain any semblance of normalcy. Or maybe even sanity.

He laughs a little bit, lightly and dryly; then lower, 'Yeah, I might go for the running myself if it keeps up. I'm used to twice a week or more but... Not sure I'll make it long on no sleep at all. Time Lords don't need much but when they don't get that little bit of it, you definitely start to notice.'

His teacup is empty by now since he mostly drank it when he wasn't paying attention to anything, and he looks down into it, then leans over and sets it on the small table they apparently have.

He makes like he's going to ask a question and then holds off on the wording for a couple of seconds before carefully asking her: 'When did your... 's. Yours, stop?'

Rose is making a note of the sleep schedule he's letting slip here.

She fiddles with her own half empty mug of tea, gnawing on the inside of her lip before she speaks. "Closer we got to actually findin' you the less I had 'em but when I did have 'em--" She pauses because she might as well be honest about how these things are going.

"Do have 'em they're more...intense. More real when I do have 'em. They've been less though. With you here."

She smiles a bit at him. "Maybe after this we'll schedule a coupla nights so or when we sleep in the hammock. Got to stay in runnin' shape."

Yeah he'll be annoyed later when he realises he let that slip like that.

He's watching carefully - not obviously but still closely - as she fiddles and gnaws and answers. The tense shift is mildly surprising - people having nightmares about him at all is something he rarely considers. That they would happen on anything approaching regular and persist even while he was still there is kind of mentally staggering for someone who salves his losses with the 'they'll live better lives and forget me' mantra. Even if it is Rose. It's been a while out of City since he saw her anyway, for him at least.

'I'm sorry.' What else do you say when someone is having nightmares about you? He put his teacup on the table and now he hasn't got anything to awkwardly fiddle with. Damn. He looks over when she starts talking about sleeping occasionally in the hammock, together. 'It does already have a bit of a dreamcatcher about it, yeah...' He glances back down. 'Not a bad idea though. See how it works out.'

If she's good, and careful, he won't actually realise it.

Silly, silly Doctor. Perhaps in some cases his salve is accurate, not all, but definitely not in Rose's case. When she said forever, she meant forever and not just for his sake but for hers as well. It was a while our of the City for her as well, years but it hadn't mattered.

She shakes her head at his apology. "Not your fault. You didn't mean to lose me." She has to believe that. She has to believe that he wouldn't have left her, not on purpose. Later, that will be more problematic but for the moment, she wants to believe that when he agreed to forever, he meant it. At least for as long as her forever lasts.

She gives a glance over at the hammock and nods. "Think it might work. For both of us." That's part of her plan, making certain he knows it benefits her as well.

Well, Rose has always been a special case, hasn't she?

He does a fairly good job not looking all shades of guilty after her first statement. He really hadn't meant to originally, and oh how much easier things would have been if he hadn't. The second time it wasn't lost, per the general meaning of the word, though that's obviously a thin distinction. 'Suppose not.'

She does have good plans. Being for the benefit of Rose makes things so much more likely to happen. 'That would be... really very nice, if it does. More things ought to have solutions like that, supposing it works.'

As long as that's special as in unique and not short bus.

She doesn't have any reason to suspect him of guilt so he gets away with it. He won't forever though. There will be some answering for it on his part.

She nudges him a bit with her shoulder. "Things like that, always better with two. 'Specially when the two's me and you."

Pft. Like that's even something she ought to be worried about.

That's still going to be a 'fun' conversation. Given how many times she seems to have mentally counted things as okay given that they weren't separated on purpose, he's going to be in quite a bit of trouble.

'Quite right. Most things are better with two. Makes it easier to count off, anyway. Keep track of companions, share things. You get a lot of things packaged in sets of two. Mind, sleep deprivation isn't something I ever thought would be counted amongst the "Good When Shared" list.'

So much trouble. He'll be digging himself out for a good bit. Although really, guilt will probably do him in. I suspect her nightmares will come back in full force once she finds out. Really though, part of her counting things as 'okay' because they weren't separated on purpose is more about reassuring herself that a)she's not going to be like other companions. He won't abandon her and b)once they're out of here, he'll take her with him again.

"Guess we've got to add to that list, yeah?"

It'll probably take some convincing after she learns but he really isn't ever going to leave her ever again at this point. Not voluntarily, anyway. Possibly not even involuntarily. It's a good thing she likes him so much because he's going to follow her everywhere. Digging out might be decent motivation for him to step up to this relationship a bit anyway, since right now it feels like it's mostly her doing a lot of the work.

In response to her sort-of-an-actual-question he nods a bit, then adds, 'It's a fairly extensive list anyway, I think. One more won't hurt it any.'

Definitely some convincing probably spread out over a period of time. She won't actually argue with that. Well...she might at first, a couple of snide remarks about his clone and wouldn't be nice if he could just send metacrisis Doctor in to fill in for him but that's not likely to happen more than once. She just doesn't have it in her to be mean to him even when she's hurt and angry.

"Ought to be safe and just put 'everything' on there."

'Yeah, just load it up with everything and then when we run across the handful where it's not, we can strike them from it. Far less hassle that way.'

At least he might not be stuck in the shit-hole for too long, both parties involved play their cards right, the whole process might actually approach smooth. He reaches back over to get his tea, since there's some lukewarm bits in the bottom still.

'You know, you show up in mine sometimes too. Every now and then.'

"S'xactly. Be more efficient that way. Bound to be a lot fewer things that aren't better with two." Not that she can think of any at the moment. Call it sleep deprivation combined with a good deal of neediness on her part at the moment.

Very true. Fingers crossed for the both of them then.

She perks up a bit at that, watching him carefully. "Yeah? S'pose that's inevitable, considerin' everything." She's intensely curious as to what she's doing in this nightmares but she knows better than to push him on this sorta thing. She doesn't want him to shut down completely.

Because they are clearly the paragons of efficiency, these two. Totally.

We'll just get to see how it plays out when it starts playing out. Until then, he busies himself with nursing the rest of his tea until it's basically gone, listening to what she's saying and then taking a somewhat elongated pause wherein he mostly looks down and gathers thoughts together.

'Inevitable. Not used to having that word applied to things in my life,' he says, somewhat bitterly. It's also just a pure fact. Things in the life of any time-traveller quickly become very evitable. Sometimes even re-evitable. 'Do a lot of just walking away. You do, I mean. Not specifically away from me, just that I'm seeing your back. Fire shows up a lot.' Pause. Then very quickly, 'Not, that- not that I mean you on fire. Just... fire. Stuff.'

Absolutely. They should be immolated always in that regard.

She takes a deep breath and nods. She doesn't understand why there's fire. Her brow furrows a bit and she reaches out to run her fingers through his hair and down to the back of his neck.

"Why fire?"

He had the tea about halfway to his lips for the last mouthful when she started all that with her fingers and hands, and he slowly lets it back down to rest on his leg for now instead.

'Things burn in war. Entire pla-, entire places. It's an ancient tactic but damn if it isn't still efficient. More than it has a right to be, really.'

She's just going to keep that up since he seems to like. It also gives her something to do. That's important right now with this conversation, at this level of exhaustion.

She nods, moving both hands to cup his face and make certain he's looking at her. "You won't let anythin' destroy me." That emotion he's getting from her, is faith in him. She doesn't have any doubts about this.

"And m'not goin' to let anything take me away from you. Not now. Not ever."

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly in her hands. 'No, I won't.' He can't as directly imbue the emotion but it's still said with certainty that doesn't totally match the level of exhaustion they both have. People believing he can do things is usually the quickest way to make sure they get done though, if personal history is anything to go by.

'Better not. I'm not sure I could handle that.'

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Log ongoing; closed

yes, he will. and she will probably laugh at him

So much laughing

not nice Rose.

You would do the same Doctor!

Of course he would but that's completely different.

Of course it is, Doctor

i sense patronisation...

What? Never!

uh huh. UH HUH.

It's inspired what can I say

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